Northwest Voices | Letters to the Editor

Welcome to The Seattle Times' online letters to the editor, a sampling of readers' opinions. Join the conversation by commenting on these letters or send your own letter of up to 200 words letters@seattletimes.com.

Late ballots draw out election results in Washington state

Too bad Washington state missed out being a part of history's changing tide when it comes to gay marriage [“Hanging on to hopes for victory,” page one, Nov. 8]. I've seen repeated national references to the victories in Maine, Maryland and Minnesota by national media, many failing to mention our own Referendum 74. While the "Approve" votes will eventually take the day, we will have missed our once-in-a-lifetime chance for national recognition.

We simply must change our rules regarding mail-in ballots. I concur entirely with the recent op-ed piece by Jason Mercier [“Washington should require ballots to arrive by Election Day,” Opinion, Nov. 7]. Until we can count our votes on Election Night, we will continue to be confused, and irrelevant.

— Doug Adams, Seattle

Need for faster voting system

In the second decade of the 21st century, something is seriously unsatisfactory with how King County and Washington count election ballots. As I write, more than 30 hours after polls closed, there is no finality to many statewide and King County elections.

Compared with California, Washington seems like it is stuck in the 19th century; the much larger state with millions more voters, a longer ballot and very disparate communities was able to publicly (on a newspaper website) post complete (100 percent precincts reports) results less than 13 hours after polls closed.

It was reported Wednesday that King County vote-tabulating machines were down for maintenance because of the unexpected ballot volume. Really? Didn't they know how many ballots were mailed? Was preventive maintenance performed on the machines before the election?

The slowness of vote counting does nothing to instill confidence in Washington's election system. It's time Washington's secretary of state and county election directors go back to the drawing board to implement a safe-from-electric-corruption and faster voting system.